States seek federal help fighting mussel scourge

File - In this July 6, 2009 file photo, invasive quagga mussels cover this formerly sunken boat at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nev. A regional power planning group from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana is pursuing $2 million from the federal government to help fend off the menace of invasive mussels that have clogged Colorado River reservoirs since 2007. These states and others say they're frustrated by the number of boats that continue to come from Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona over their borders infested with quagga and zebra mussels. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca, File)
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File - In this July 6, 2009 file photo, invasive quagga mussels cover this formerly sunken boat at Lake Mead National Recreation Area in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nev. A regional power planning group from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana is pursuing $2 million from the federal government to help fend off the menace of invasive mussels that have clogged Colorado River reservoirs since 2007. These states and others say they're frustrated by the number of boats that continue to come from Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona over their borders infested with quagga and zebra mussels. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca, File)
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FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2012, file photo, Idaho State Rep. Eric Anderson poses in his offices in the Idaho Capitol in Boise with an Idaho license plate he left for six months in Lake Mead near Las Vegas to be encrusted with quagga mussels. A regional power planning group from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana is pursuing $2 million from the federal government to help fend off the menace of invasive mussels that have clogged Colorado River reservoirs since 2007. These states and others say they're frustrated by the number of boats that continue to come from Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona over their borders infested with quagga and zebra mussels. (AP Photo/John Miller, File)— AP

FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2012, file photo, Idaho State Rep. Eric Anderson poses in his offices in the Idaho Capitol in Boise with an Idaho license plate he left for six months in Lake Mead near Las Vegas to be encrusted with quagga mussels. A regional power planning group from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana is pursuing $2 million from the federal government to help fend off the menace of invasive mussels that have clogged Colorado River reservoirs since 2007. These states and others say they're frustrated by the number of boats that continue to come from Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona over their borders infested with quagga and zebra mussels. (AP Photo/John Miller, File)
/ AP

File - In this July 6, 2009 file photo, Andrew Munoz, of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, holds up a rock covered with the invasive quagga mussels at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nev. A regional power planning group from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana is pursuing $2 million from the federal government to help fend off the menace of invasive mussels that have clogged Colorado River reservoirs since 2007. These states and others say they're frustrated by the number of boats that continue to come from Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona over their borders infested with quagga and zebra mussels. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca, File)— AP

File - In this July 6, 2009 file photo, Andrew Munoz, of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, holds up a rock covered with the invasive quagga mussels at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nev. A regional power planning group from Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Montana is pursuing $2 million from the federal government to help fend off the menace of invasive mussels that have clogged Colorado River reservoirs since 2007. These states and others say they're frustrated by the number of boats that continue to come from Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona over their borders infested with quagga and zebra mussels. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca, File)
/ AP

BOISE, Idaho 
Regional energy planners for four Western states are asking Congress for help building a stronger line of defense against what some officials call an unfolding environmental disaster - an invasive mussel that is clogging Colorado River reservoirs like Lake Mead outside Las Vegas after ravaging the Great Lakes region.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council guides power and environmental policy in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, all of which are frustrated because boats continue to leave Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona contaminated with quagga mussels.

It's seeking $2 million in federal aid to add watercraft inspection and decontamination stations to intercept boats carrying these rapidly multiplying, thumb-sized mollusks that could wreak havoc on Columbia River hydroelectric dams, farmers' irrigation systems and lakes prized for recreation. The water district in Los Angeles already estimates up to $15 million in annual expenses tackling quagga infestations that have damaged its aqueduct and reservoir system extending from the Colorado River.

"A second line of defense is not as good perhaps as stopping them at Lake Mead, but it's something we absolutely need to do when we can't depend on interdiction efforts," Phil Rockefeller, one of two Washington state appointees on the council, said Tuesday at a meeting in Boise.

In 2012, a $1 million appropriation pushed by U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, was directed to support "mandatory operational inspection and decontamination stations" at sites including Lake Mead.

But only about half the money has gone toward inspection and decontamination work, according to the council, prompting Rockefeller to complain that federal agencies including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service aren't sufficiently invested in fighting the scourge.

Researchers don't know exactly how the mussels arrived at Lake Mead, where their numbers have increased tenfold to 1.5 trillion since their 2007 discovery. Some speculate they hitchhiked aboard a boat from the Great Lakes region, where the mussels have been proliferating for more than 20 years after arriving in the ballast of ocean-going ships from Eastern Europe. Mussels have damaged ecological systems and done hundreds of millions in damage in the Great Lakes region.

Given the mussels' rapid proliferation on the Colorado River, Idaho state Rep. Eric Anderson said stopping contaminated boats before they go elsewhere is the best way to combat the mussels' spread.

This year alone, nearly 80 infested boats have been stopped on the borders of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, most coming from Lake Mead.

"The fire is Lake Mead," said Anderson, a Republican who has become Idaho's leading legislative champion of fighting mussels. "We can't allow any more boats to come out of Lake Mead that aren't decontaminated."

Earlier this year, Anderson left 500 Idaho license plates underwater at a Lake Mead marina. After they've been encrusted with the mussels, he'll distribute them to Idaho outlets that sell boat tags - as visual examples of the mussels' potential toll. Revenue from these tags funds Idaho's $850,000 annual effort to keep mussels out of Idaho, including border inspections that began in 2009.